NOTE: We do still have U-Pick/We-Pick Blueberries.
Available Thurs-Saturday, 9am to 4pm. Still lots of berries left! 5371
Brooklake Rd NE, Brooks OR 97305. (4 blocks from U-Pick apple
location.) $1.20/lb
Still blueberry picking time around here!
One of our fields we pick with a machine. The rest we hand pick. This is a side row blueberry picker. There are also more commonly used over the row pickers. We use this side row kind because it fits under our low bird netting.
We have 5 people on the machine. One driving, and 4 in the back sorting and stacking empty and full crates. This year we would start at 2am picking. In the previous years, we have started later in the AM but found that picking earlier helps the berries come off more easily.
Below is a picture of where the bushes go through the machine. The beater bars shake the bush from both sides and knock the berries off.
When the berries fall, they are caught by these plastic arm sheets and roll to the white cups you see lining both sides. The plastic arm sheets actually swing open as they hit the base of the blueberry bush. So while they do catch many of the berries, we also lose much on the ground. (Picture below) One way to help reduce fruit drop loss is to prune the base of your bushes so they are very narrow.
In the video, if you look closely, you can see the berries falling and rolling over to the side.
Here is how many berries that are lost on the ground. Painful!
Another negative is the blueberry picker machine will also pick some greens. Whenever you pick greens, you are losing some of your next picking. It will negatively affect your yield.
(That to say, we are pretty novice at picking with a machine. Plus our machine is very old. I believe the newer over the row blueberry pickers and if we had more experience, would probably pick less green.)
This is the other side of the blueberry picker. Between where the 2 people are standing, there is a sorting belt and it is where the berries drop into the crates.
These crates don't looks so bad. They have less green berries.
Why would a blueberry grow choose to machine pick over hand pick?
Some berries don't ship well to far away places, so they can't easily be sold fresh. So instead that berry would go to the process market, which means, either frozen, dried or as juice.
It also can largely depend on the price you as a grower are being paid per pound. If it is a low price, then you cannot afford to pick it by hand. This year it cost us $0.70 per pound to pay a picker to hand pick. When you are only being paid $1.00 per pound for fresh market, you are losing money after you add up all your expenses to grow the berries.
It costs $0.10-.15 to harvest per pound to machine pick so that is much less expensive. The downside is you get paid less for machine picked berries. This year it is likely $0.70. Factor in the berries that get dropped on the ground (which happens also with hand pick but not as bad), and how much dockage you get. Dockage is the percentage of berries that have to be sorted out because they are green, not yet ripe enough, soft or shriveled. We have dockage for hand pick too but usually it isn't as high of percentage.
So it can depend on the variety you grow, what the market will pay you or if you just can't get any pickers to show up!
NOTE: We do still have U-Pick/We-Pick Blueberries. Available Thurs-Saturday, 9am to 4pm. Still TONS of berries left! 5371 Brooklake Rd NE, Brooks OR 97305. (4 blocks from U-Pick apple location.) Also dark Sweetheart cherries available this week. They are at their sweetest! So amazingly good.
Well the swathing of grass seed is finished and now we are on to combining!
Like I explained in the
previous post, combines separate the seed from the straw. We keep the
seed and the straw gets blown out the back to lay on the field. It is a
slow process because you can only drive 1.9 - 2.2 mph! But it is the
best job on farm- air conditioning, radio, low stress, and there is a
buddy seat so sometimes you can have a friend! ha
You have to
watch the humidity to know when you can start combining. You want it
less than 50% humidity otherwise you might not be shaking all the seed
off that is there. If it is a good, dry day, combining usually happens
between 10am and 10pm. But Saturday, I was still sitting here at 3pm
waiting to combine because there is too much moisture in the air. When
it is a cloudy or wet season, sometimes you have several days of
4pm-10pm, and it makes for a long season because you can't get much done
each day. Rain is not good for grass seed harvest either. Sometimes
you have to wait and wait days for the rows to dry out, seed can mold,
or the grass underneath the swathed rows can start growing again and you
will see it trying to push through!
This
week, my son was excited to come ride with me. He is almost 4. Last
year he rode with me and I thought he would last about 1/2 hr and he'd
be ready to move onto something else. He ended up lasting 3 1/2 hours,
talking and asking questions the whole time! I was pretty amazed. This
year he lasted quite awhile too but feel asleep after an hour. And
this for a boy that doesn't nap anymore!
My daughter got her chance to ride in the combine for the first time too
this weekend. She rode with my dad while I got a little break. Looks
like I'm going to lose my combining job sooner than I think. First time
in, and she is already driving!
After a field is combined, the
straw that is left in the field is either baled or it can be chopped up
and let lay on the field. A lot of times it depends on what price you
get for the straw and also the field needs.
Lastly the field gets mowed and it waits to grow another year!
So that is what is happening right now on the farm. Thanks for checking in!
If you are looking for
blueberry u-pick/stand information, check the 2 previous posts. Yes there
are TONS of berries available to be picked!
It is harvest time for our grass seed fields. Beforehand, we check each field to see which one is the most ripe.
Below is the grass seed. To
check if a field is ready, we randomly pull off some seed heads. If
they have any green color they are not ready. If they look tan, then
you push down in the middle of the seed to see if it feels firm or
doughy. We want it firm and that means it is ripe!
There are other methods of checking ripeness, including microwaving the seed but above is how we did it this year.
To start harvest, we have to
cut the grass and lay it into rows. We use a swather for this and the
process is called swathing. We swath the grass late at night and early
morning because there will be dew on the fields. The wetness helps keep
the seeds attached to the stem so we don't lose any on the ground. If
we did it in the heat of the day, it could just shatter right off. We
have no way to harvest the seed once it hits the ground. We let it lay
in rows for 10 days to dry out.
The combine then picks up the rows and separates the seed from the straw.
The seed gets collected into a big bin in the combine and the straw gets
discarded out the back. Next, the seed gets dumped into a big truck.
The truck will take the seed to a seed cleaning plant. There the weed
seeds and grass seeds that are blank (not viable) get removed so only
pure seed remains. It gets bagged up, then eventually makes it to the
consumer to plant their lawns, etc!
Above is the swather we use.
What
I learned one of the mornings we swathed is that it gets light before
5am and there was lots of thunder over Mt. Hood. And that I will
definitely sleep really well tonight after starting at 2am! But I do
love this time of year!!
We WILL be open Thursday and Friday from 9am to 4pm.
The blueberries are still beautiful and super easy picking. You will love it, I promise!
We
will have the dark Sweetheart cherries available too. This may be the
last week they are available but they may surprise me and hold well on
the tree until the following week. If you must have some, I'd get them
this week though just to be safe.
Thanks to all who came and enjoyed our berries last week!
Hope you all have a great 4th!
(For location and more information about u-pick blueberries, please check the previous post.)
We will be open Thursdays thru Saturdays starting today! 9am-4pm.
Blueberries likely will last through July.
Our
u-pick field and stand where you can buy pre-picked blueberries is
located at 5371 Brooklake Rd NE, in downtown Brooks. Just 1/4 mile east
of the only traffic light in Brooks.
$1.20 per pound for u-pick.
Cash or check only. We also accept WIC and Farm Direct coupons.
Hope
to see you there! The berries are easy to pick, big and beautiful!
You will be picking off of 20 year old bushes so they are LOTS of
berries!
U-Pick blueberries will be here soon! For a guess around the 25th of June, give or take. We will be open Thursday thru Saturdays from 9am to 4pm this year.
We
have a large field of Bluecrop blueberries. They are our sweetest and
biggest berries. Located off of Brooklake Rd a 1/4 mile east of the
only traffic light in downtown Brooks (99E and Brooklake Rd. If you see
a blueberry field covered with netting, that is the one!
More details to come once we know an exact open date.
My
daughter got to pick her first blueberry this year! At first she
didn't seem to believe me that she could eat one. But after I popped
one into my mouth, she couldn't stop eating them it seemed!
We
also put our blueberry net up again for the year over 10 acres of
berries. Each year we get a little better idea how to put it up faster.
Our
commercial blueberries we started picking Friday which is crazy earlier
than normal. We are all ready though so it is not a major stress.
Plus it is so wonderful each time we get those blueberries off the
bushes! We have a year's worth of time and money investment into those
little things so the last few weeks can get a little stressful thinking
of all the things that could go wrong right before you can get them
picked.
The
u-pick apples are about the size of a golf ball right now! They are
growing well, trying to get prepared for all you visitors in the fall!
We are also growing Radish Seed, Kale Seed, Tall Fescue grass seed, and Corn this year. Our combine will be busy this year!
Miss
all the activity you guys bring when you come to pick our apples! But
this year has flown by already so I know the fall will be here in no
time.
We had to go into overdrive a
little near the end of pruning our apples. Because of the weather,
everything is 3 weeks early so far this year so our winter seemed to go
quickly!
We sometimes hire this machine to come top our trees. We
still have to do lots of hand pruning afterwards to do. We like our
trees pretty low so sometimes this machine doesn't quite cut low
enough. The person driving it is practically barricaded into a metal
cab just in case one of the round cutter blades were to come off, but
more so they don't get pelted with flying branches.
Before
After
Little apples starting to grow. About pinky finger size now and smaller.
Different apple variety, a little farther behind.
We
hung our bug pheromone sticky traps in the apples to keep watch for
any codling moth. (Codling moths are the bugs you can thank for worm
holes in your apples.) This year we also hung in each tree a mating
disruptor for the codling moth. It is a little ring you slide over a
branch near the top of the tree. It's pheromone (smell a bug can smell)
confuses the codling moths so they can't find each other to mate.
Pretty cool because it is an organic method to repel codling moths. We
are excited to see how well it works.
Can you see the orange circle band? That's the mating disruptor.
No codling moth in the trap! Just some flies and some other small bugs that I need to find out what they are.
A
row of our trees was starting to lean. So we had to straighten all the
trees with these 2x4's and tighten the wire. Should help a bunch.
Other Farm Happenings:
A
majority of the blueberries are done blooming too. Whew we made it
through without a frost! Each developmental stage the blueberry goes
through has a different cold temperature it can withstand before it is
ruined. When the berry is in full blossom, it can withstand 28
degrees. Right after the blossom falls off, where you have a tiny green
berry, it can only stand 32 degrees. This is actually where we are
right now so we are at the most vulnerable stage. Thankfully the
forecast looks good.
We
are also walking our grass seed fields, hoeing out any grasses that are
not Tall Fescue grass. We already did a pass through in the fall and
got the majority but now is the time to check again. It is especially
important to do a good job on the grass fields that were just planted in
the fall. If you start your field off clean, it will be much easier to
manage as the years go by. We keep our grass fields in for a minimum
of 3 years, many times longer if the yield is still doing well. You
don't want any weed seeds, especially other grass seed types, in your
field. After harvest, our grass seed gets tested up at Oregon State. There are 225,000 seeds in one pound of Tall Fescue grass seed. If they find more than 1 weed seed (especially another type of grass seed), you may have to renegotiate with your grass seed buyer for a lower price, or the buyer can choose to reject your seed, since we signed a contract stating our grass seed would be clean up to their standards. So that's why when you see a whole line of people slowly walking a grass field in a line, that is what they are doing!
Well
I am off to work (on what seems to be) too much paperwork for our upcoming annual Global
Gap blueberry food safety audit in July. If I don't get started now, I
will never get it done! That is starting to be one of the hardest parts
about Spring, having to be inside working on this when there are so
many other important things to do. I'm not against the audit at all in theory but in reality it seems to take up so much of my time each year. I did just finish all the paperwork
for our Norpac Stewardship Food Alliance audit so that is one checked
off the list! I will keep plugging away...and at least I can have the door of
the office open so I can get some fresh air!
It is the new year already! We are enjoying the winter with the slower pace.
Today
we attended an all day meeting educating us about all the plant
production product label updates. The speakers share about research
trials that have been done that show what products work best for weeds,
disease, etc for the crops grown in the Willamette Valley. We also
learned about updates from the Oregon Department of Agriculture about
what is coming down the line in the legislature and other government
regulations about rules that will affect farmers. Sometimes it gets
pretty overwhelming all the regulations that farmers have to comply
with. I wish farmers and neighbors, and community in general could
just work things out between themselves instead of having to have all
these rules that come with so much paperwork. I know I am just
dreaming though because this is not a perfect world.
We
have 6 employees out pruning our blueberries. It takes them about 3
months to prune all the blueberries which is nice for them so they can
have year-round work. Next they go prune the apples. Every year we
have to decide how aggressive to prune the blueberries. If we prune
really hard we will get fewer but bigger berries but if we prune too
light, then we will have lots of really small berries which is not the
best. So we usually shoot for the middle ground.
When we start
pruning a blueberry bush, the first thing we do is look at the base of
the plant and see if there are any new growth whips that are too small
to keep. We cut them off at the ground. Next we look to the middle of
the bush. It is important for blueberries to have light and air flow in
the middle of the bush (plus makes it easier to pick later) so we take
out any branches that cross through the middle horizontally or thin out
any areas in the middle that are really compact with branches. It is
most efficient to identify if there are any whole stems/branches you can
cut out first because you might as well not thin the top of the plant,
then decide later, that you want to take out that whole stem and branch
anyway. Next we look to the top of the bush and thin that out.
Before pruning (Liberty variety)
After pruning (Liberty plant)
The
picture to above is of a branch that has not been pruned yet. The
very end of the branch needs pruned off because it is a brown dead
branch anyway. Then next we would have to decide how many shoots off
the main branch we would take off. Since these are Liberty blueberries
and our goal this year is to grow our plants bigger, we would prune some
of those side branches off. Hopefully the plant will not have to share
so much energy with producing all the small berries, that some of the
energy can go into plant growth. Also, the smaller the thickness of the
side branch, the less size of fruit it will produce, so we take those
off first. Hopefully all this makes sense. Hard to explain when I
can't point exactly at things.
It
also depends on how hard you prune by what variety of blueberry you
have. We have 3 different varieties and each is different. In our
Dukes, that are finicky to grow, if we get any new growth from the
bottom we are lucky, so we DO NOT cut it off because it is precious.
But in a Liberty blueberry field, we have tons of new shoots (growth)
coming from the bottom so we will be more aggressive and take quite a
bit off.
We also had our blueberry fields limed recently. If you
were to see the fields, you would have thought it snowed! I don't know
if you have ever driven by some open dirt fields and they are covered in
white and you wonder what it is. They have been limed too. Lime is a
naturally occurring product that farmers apply to keep their fields at a
pH that is best for their specific crops. Blueberries are very picky
about what pH the soil needs to be at in order to grow well.
We
usually apply lime if we change the crop we grow on our land. For
instance, when we are growing grass seed, those fields usually stay in
at least 3 years so for 3 years we don't have a chance to apply lime.
So the year that grass field is taken out, we would apply lime that year
because we have the chance to incorporate it into the soil.
Between
educational meetings, checking on the blueberry pruning, and making
decisions for the coming season, we also like to do some organizing
around the farm in the winter. This year we are focusing on our storage
areas. With farming, there are so many diverse things we do and we
have extra parts or leftover supplies from everything. We are always
trying to figure out ways to organize it well, or what things can we get
rid of or will need in the future. And what things we should get rid
of or keep is always debatable between the generations :)
